50 Years Later, Rosalind Franklin's X-Ray Fuels Debate

By DENISE GRADY

Published: February 25, 2003

Fifty years ago, a casual gesture at a laboratory in London became a defining moment in the history of science. James D. Watson was visiting King's College late one afternoon near the end of January 1953, when a researcher named Maurice Wilkins showed him an X-ray photograph of a molecule of DNA.

Describing the encounter years later in "The Double Helix," Dr. Watson wrote, "The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race."

The image was one of many by various researchers that hinted at a helix, but its singular clarity helped lead Dr. Watson and his colleague Francis Crick to the structure of DNA.

The scientist who took the picture was Dr. Rosalind Franklin, and though they cited other work she had done, Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick did not acknowledge the photograph itself, or additional work by her they had used, in their paper.

Some historians say that is of little importance because the two would have deduced the structure even without the image. Besides, they say, Dr. Franklin herself did not seem to recognize the picture's importance; she had put it aside.

But for others, over the years, Dr. Franklin has come to symbolize the plight of women in science, as men close ranks against them.

Dr. Franklin's X-ray image, labeled Photograph 51, showed a distinctive X-shaped pattern. On the train back to Cambridge that night, Dr. Watson sketched on his newspaper the details he remembered from the picture, clues to the angles and spacing within the helix. By the time he got home, he had decided that its most likely structure was a double helix, and that he and Francis Crick should build a model to see if the pieces would fit.

The pressure was on: in America, Dr. Linus Pauling was at work, too, and he could not be far from cracking it.

A month later, the Watson-Crick team won the race: the pieces fit, they soon published a paper, and they went on to win the Nobel Prize, along with Dr. Wilkins.

But a question remains: had they used Dr. Franklin's data without her permission or knowledge, and without giving her adequate credit?

It was Dr. Franklin, not her colleague Dr. Wilkins, who created Photograph 51, an image of what was known as the B form of DNA. Dr. Wilkins, who did not get along with Dr. Franklin, showed Dr. Watson the picture without telling her. Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick also used a report Dr. Franklin had written, passed to them by Max Perutz, a colleague and member of a research oversight committee.

"Rosy, of course, did not directly give us her data," Dr. Watson wrote. "For that matter, no one at King's realized they were in our hands."

But Dr. Crick does not share this perception. Dr. Franklin "must have known we knew most of it," he said in an interview.

For one thing, Dr. Franklin had made her data public at a seminar both men had been invited to attend. Unfortunately, Dr. Watson misinterpreted her presentation and Dr. Crick was not there.

As a result, the photograph Dr. Wilkins showed Dr. Watson was "the thing that triggered this off," Dr. Crick said in an interview. But he added: "We could have got that information from earlier work. It would have made a big difference if I'd gone to that seminar."

"We never had a discussion afterward," he said of Dr. Franklin. "She never raised the issue."

Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick did acknowledge other work by Dr. Wilkins and Dr. Franklin in their paper, but left it to Dr. Wilkins to decide whether he and Dr. Franklin should share authorship, an offer he declined. Dr. Franklin and Dr. Wilkins themselves published much of their data on DNA, including the famous photograph, in the same issue of Nature as the Watson and Crick paper.

As for the 1962 Nobel Prize, Dr. Franklin could not have been included; she died in 1958 of ovarian cancer and the Nobel is never awarded posthumously. Whether she would have been included is not clear; the prize is not split more than three ways.

Dr. Watson's "Double Helix" has, if anything, contributed to the view that Dr. Franklin was unfairly deprived of credit she deserved. The book is peppered with snide comments about her looks and describes her as so snappish and fierce that Dr. Watson and Dr. Wilkins, who towered over her, supposedly feared she would hit them.

"Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place," Dr. Watson wrote in Chapter 2 and added, later, "The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab."

In a biography published in October, "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA," Brenda Maddox theorizes that Dr. Watson portrayed Dr. Franklin as hostile and unreasonable to justify using her data without telling her. Ms. Maddox writes that Dr. Watson added a "pious epilogue" praising Dr. Franklin only after numerous colleagues who read a draft expressed outrage at his depiction of her.

According to Ms. Maddox's biography, Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick eventually became friendly with Dr. Franklin. After her death, both men praised her generously in public forums.

"At no time did Rosalind, as far as is known, express any resentment at our having solved the structure," Dr. Crick said.

In a recent interview in which he discussed Dr. Franklin, Dr. Watson said: "She never felt she was robbed. People say, `Well, she never knew we saw the B photo.' That was a question between Maurice and her."